Rome-ing In The Gloaming

People have asked me what I think about Pope Benedict’s Apostolic Constitution permitting Anglicans lay and ordained to join themselves to the Roman Catholic Church while maintaining at least some of the liturgical and theological inheritance of the Anglican Tradition. Since I’m a pretty resolutely catholic-minded theologian, and an extremely resolutely Anglican-Episcopalian, there’s a lot to say about this move.

First, though, let’s get over the “winning”/“losing” game of numbers and political maneuvering. Christians should have learned at the foot of the cross that “winning” and “losing” in temporal terms don’t have anything to do with the truth of the gospel. Benedict, I am very confident, is not trying to “poach” Anglicans, and Rowan Williams isn’t in an ecclesiological arm-wrestling match to constrain Tiber-leaning clergy and congregations. If I understand Williams aright, he consistently aims at articulating the most precise and truthful ecclesiology he can, regardless of who likes it or doesn’t. (I’m willing to grant that he may not always succeed, or that he may sometimes succumb to tailoring his arguments to fit one audience or another, but even when he lapses he’s a sharper theologian than all but a newborn’s handful of his detractors. Few things trouble me more than self-congratulatory theological hooligans who paint their faces with the colours of their favoured partisan, then hoot and jeer if they don’t “win” in any given church showdown.)

If we can set aside considerations of who profits from this decision, a number of salient points come to mind. First, the Roman Catholic Church will appeal to only a portion of the Anglicans who are fervently constructing alternative provisions, crossing boundaries, etc. A great proportion of “orthodox” Anglicans adhere much more closely to the Reformed side of the volatile Anglican amalgam, and having Benedict offer them a side aisle at St Peter’s isn’t going to impress them very much. For Reformed “orthodox” Anglicans, the Pope’s gesture will function mostly as a cudgel with which to browbeat “established” Anglicans (by which I mean the Anglicans and Episcopalians who are riding out the tedious, painful, frustrating process of arriving at some sort of durable conciliar resolution of the current state of affairs). Note that many of the leaders of the “orthodox” have said, in effect, “What a nice gesture! No thanks.”

Second, in a very narrow way, I think this is a lovely and kind gesture by Benedict to those who really do love the treasure of Anglican identity, but who crave the stability (and male leadership?) of the Church of Rome. Although the Catholic stream wholly within Anglicanism is more prominent as a recent fictive invention than as a historical datum, it is nonetheless a very powerful invention. A deep swath of Episcopalians and Anglicans have found the retrieval of Catholic elements in their heritage to heal and strengthen them with ancient, traditional wisdom — to correct, on their terms, the Anglican reactivity against anything that smacked of Rome (Laud, Newman, etc.). For such people, the possibility of an Anglican Roman conjunction will be a sweet gift indeed.

But third, I fear that that is a small proportion of the people who will thus be affected. Let’s start by enumerating Roman Catholic clergy who now see that their Anglo-Roman colleagues can serve God as priests without observing Rome’s strictures on clerical celibacy. Faithful servants of the church who have renounced the blessings of marital intimacy and parental joy and pride will work elbow to elbow with newcomers who have vibrant marriages and lovely children (or troubled marriages and troubling children — I reckon the effect will be similar whichever the case). Moreover, since Anglicans/Episcopalians have taken a very indulgent tack relative to divorce and remarriage, a certain number of “orthodox” clergy will either be incorporated into Roman orders despite their divorce(s), or will be excluded from serving on that basis. And that will surely enter the deliberations of some such clergy to an extent that overshadows unalloyed ecclesiological integrity. Likewise Anglican/Episcopal bishops: some who might be sympathetic to adopting Anglo-Roman identity will hesitate if it means renouncing their episcopal status. Some too will graciously submit to what Rome requires of them — and God bless them for their integrity — but the question of marriage will muddy the waters when it comes to implementing this Apostolic Constitution.

At the same time, the expectation that clergy abstain from all sexual intimacy has made a (somewhat) safe space among Roman Catholic clergy for gay men who, after all, are not renouncing any more than their straight colleagues. (I’m not saying that everyone upholds this restraint, but that it applies equally to all affections.) Again, introducing connubially-blessed (straight) clergy to the equation risks triggering disruptive consequences.

But the casuistry and pastoral provisions that come into play with this Constitution also heighten the pressure for Rome to deal constructively with its androcracy. Women have been serving and in some cases holding the Roman Catholic church together for hundreds of years, and as they observe special considerations being applied to this group or that, some among them will vent an intensified frustration with their liminality (at best) and exclusion (often) in Roman leadership. I can’t imagine Rome needs more headaches on this score, but the inclusion of married straight male clergy will likely increase some women’s sense of being relegated to a less than fully human status.

I don’t see this move as making a strong effect on the issues of sexuality or Covenanted ecclesiology in the Anglican/Episcopal camp. Most people are so deeply committed one way or the other, or they are so tired and disheartened by the on-going brouhaha, that this just won’t make the least difference to them. I’m terrible at estimating numbers, but I’d be surprised if very many people take up Benedict’s offer; by now, I suspect that the two factions envision different paths to prevailing over their adversaries and want that brass ring more than they want whatever blessings might arise from a more irenic resolution (or side-stepping) of the conflict.

Ironically, it may be that the best audience for Benedict’s provision would be “progressive” Anglo-Catholic clergy and congregations. As prayerbook and hymnal revision steer the Episcopal Church more firmly toward finger-wagging didacticism in liturgy and the “anything that rhymes with ‘social justice’” school of hymnody, the opportunity to be as liberal as many US Roman Catholics, but as liturgically traditional and fulsome as they wanna be, might appeal to some — but they aren’t the ones Benedict wants, and (again) at this point they’re pretty firmly situated in their Anglican/Episcopal identity.

As a number of my theological and clerical colleagues have joined themselves to the Roman Catholic Church as a bulwark against error, I’ve sometimes joked that I might become a Roman Catholic so I might be excommunicated by a hierarchy that knows and cares about doctrine; or that I might become a Roman Catholic because only a system with a clear structure of authority can make dissent meaningful (whereas the US Episcopal Church seems sometimes to have forgotten that Right You Are (If You Think You Are) is a play by Pirandello, not a theological axiom).

So to sum up: this Constitution will be a blessing to some, a thorn in the side of many, and — quite possibly — not nearly so big a deal as it looks at the moment. I myself try to take the most generous view, that it provides a way for more people honestly to join in praising and worshiping God, and undoes a tiny bit of a hostility among some earnest disciples. It does not strengthen a conservative party (if more than just a few “orthodox” Anglo-Romans move over, it weakens the “traditional” voice in Anglican/Episcopalian deliberations). It ought not be perceived as strengthening a liberal party, since the dominant rhetoric of inclusiveness depends for its coherence on it incorporating conservative dissenters as gracefully as it incorporates anyone else. Benedict’s Apostolic Constitution makes an awkward move, for now, and I can’t assess it until its effects on many interested parties become clearer, but I take it that Benedict acted out of genuine charity; he has made a small crack in the dividing wall of hostility; and if love and grace prevailed among all concerned, I would think this might make a promising start.

6 Responses to Rome-ing In The Gloaming

“if love and grace prevailed among all concerned…” Indeed. Is this not the latest twist in a rift that started with the nomination of an openly gay bishop in the American Episcopal congregation? I doubt many people, ordained or not, have thought as deeply as you on ecclesiology. This move seems a blatant appeal to those (and their name is legion, sadly) who want “no gays, no women” in their pure church. They embrace a God who hates the same people they do.

You deal very kindly with the subject but I surf the TV channels enough to see what they do constantly on the RC channel. When they are not engaging in perpetual Hail Marys or masses they spend an awful lot of time celebating their proselytising of Anglicans and others. There is no reticence or shame about it and certainly not a hint of ecumenical cooperation.

Like many converts from Anglicanism I agree with your assessment of the Anglo-Catholic movement that formed me. We existed because our church, forced into schism and heresy by the state, remained haunted by the Catholic faith. Conscientious Christians in Anglicanism always felt bad about the Erastianism, and after the ‘Enlightenment’ KO’d the Calvinised faith of most Anglicans (including America’s founding fathers) and the Industrial Revolution caused the romantic Gothic Revival in reaction (wanting something better than dark satanic mills), and the generation after the Tractarians hooked up with that revival, throw in then-current RC practice (better than recent pre-Pope Benedict practice) and there we were, thinking we alone understood Anglicanism and everybody else was wrong. Recent fiction as you say but we really believed.

It’s not about male bishops or natural law on sexuality: those are surface issues of the big Catholic/Protestant difference: infallible church (indefectible is probably the better word but you know what I mean) or fallible church (defined doctrine’s not binding so everything’s up for a vote by a general synod/convention)? For example the Pope can’t change those things: he’s only the Pope. A fallible church claims a power he never dared.

And I agree that this likely will affect few people, certainly in the world scene. The conservative Episcopalians and ex-Episcopalians (ACNA), unlike Anglo-Papalists (a phenomenon almost exclusively English), believe in something called ‘Anglicanism’ and are not interested in converting and for some of the reasons you gave (irregular marriages). (Anglo-Papalists don’t believe in ‘Anglicanism’/the Anglican Communion but that they are in the part of the Catholic Church that happens to be in England.) At best from the Catholic POV all the Anglo-Papalists will move: more people in England for Pope Benedict’s Catholic revival and your C of E can have its women bishops without let or hindrance (or silly two-tier compromises offensive to you and to Catholics alike). A win-win.

As an historical matter I can’t agree with the assertion that conscientious Christians in Anglicanism always felt bad about the Erastianism. Christians of all stripes have always been willing to take advantage of the power of the state, going back at least to the exile of the Arian party after Nicaea I. Certainly all flavours of the Reformation regarded the reform of the Church as the proper province of the civil power, Luther and Calvin just as much as Cranmer and his sovereigns. In light of that I am aware of no evidence that anyone in Anglicanism “felt bad” about the role of the State in the affairs of the Church. Nobody wanted the State to butt out; everybody wanted the State to support their own vision of what the Church ought to be.

The discomfort with Erastianism has its roots not in anybody’s Christianity, but in the Enlightenment. The first hint of such discomfort that I know of is in Keble’s Assize Sermon of 1833, and as much as he and Newman decried “liberalism” and would have been horrified to be thought of as sons of the Enlightenment, that was what they unwittingly were, insofar as they were able to conceive of the Church as something properly independent of the Crown.